A Dirge
Why were you born when the snow was falling?
You should have come to the cuckoo's calling
Or when grapes are green in the cluster,
Or, at least, when lithe swallows muster
For their far off flying
From summer dying.
Why did you die when the lambs were cropping?
You should have died at the apples' dropping,
When the grasshopper comes to trouble,
And the wheat-fields are sodden stubble,
And all winds go sighing
For sweet things dying.
poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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Related quotes
Old Song
TIS a dull sight
To see the year dying,
When winter winds
Set the yellow wood sighing:
Sighing, O sighing!
When such a time cometh
I do retire
Into an old room
Beside a bright fire:
O, pile a bright fire!
And there I sit
Reading old things,
Of knights and lorn damsels,
While the wind sings--
O, drearily sings!
I never look out
Nor attend to the blast;
For all to be seen
Is the leaves falling fast:
Falling, falling!
But close at the hearth,
Like a cricket, sit I,
Reading of summer
And chivalry--
Gallant chivalry!
Then with an old friend
I talk of our youth--
How 'twas gladsome, but often
Foolish, forsooth:
But gladsome, gladsome!
Or, to get merry,
We sing some old rhyme
That made the wood ring again
In summer time--
Sweet summer time!
Then go we smoking,
Silent and snug:
Naught passes between us,
Save a brown jug--
Sometimes!
And sometimes a tear
Will rise in each eye,
Seeing the two old friends
So merrily--
So merrily!
And ere to bed
Go we, go we,
Down on the ashes
We kneel on the knee,
Praying together!
Thus, then, live I
Till, 'mid all the gloom,
By Heaven! the bold sun
Is with me in the room
Shining, shining!
Then the clouds part,
Swallows soaring between;
The spring is alive,
And the meadows are green!
I jump up like mad,
Break the old pipe in twain,
And away to the meadows,
The meadows again!
poem by Edward Fitzgerald
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And all the winds go sighing, for sweet things dying.
quote by Christina Rossetti
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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And all the winds go sighing, For sweet things dying.
quote by Marcel Proust
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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And all the winds go sighing, For sweet things dying.
quote by Christina Georgina Rossetti
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Far North In The Green Fields
Far north in the green fields of old Lisnaboy
Just learning of Nature I used to enjoy
The warm winds of Summer from the south did blow
And young birds chirped on bushes and trees and hedgerow
And the meadows scented sweet of the newly mown hay
In July in Duhallow in a place far away
From this Southern Land that I live in today
Where the father of time has left me looking gray
Fond memories of a happy boyhood I retain
And in fancy I visit the old fields again
But the mentors of my young years with the dead do now lay
And all of those I grew up with walking slower today
But in memory the swallows above the fields fly
And the cuckoo he sings in the warmth of July.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Song - Seasons of Galloway
The fields of wheat glow gold and sway
Old mem’ries flock from everywhere
On summer winds they drift in waves
Back to her towns and villages
As guillemots crowd ragged cliffs
And herring shoal off Clanyard Bay
Her sons and daughters all come home
In dreams of their young Galloway
‘Til gales come howlin’ from the west
The Cree runs high beneath the bridge
And Falling leaves ski down the wind
And starlings swirl upon the wing
For summer’s gone and sadness swells
In waves that break in Sand Eel bay
But shades of autumn weave their spell
Amongst the lanes of Galloway
Above Glen Trool the Merrick heights
All sleep beneath a chill of snow
And flights of geese come sweeping in
Across the White loch, flying low
While icy waters plunge down through
The Glen of Luce towards the sea
The cliffs are silent as the grave
And winter winds blast Galloway
‘til bluebell blossoms scent the woods
And timid deer and foxes roam
Amongst the cover on the hill
Above the village of Drummore
As swallows swoop through ancient ruins
Reminders of old yesterdays
But green shoots promise life again
Across the hills of Galloway.
03 09 08
A tale of summer
Swallows catch insects on the wing
In the early morning sun,
And a cuckoo calls to tell us
That the summer has now begun.
The flowering meadow comes alive
With butterflies and the sound of bees,
Cherry blossom showers down like confetti
Carried on the summer breeze.
Swift and house martins arrive back from afar
Making a welcome sight,
And a nightingale sings on a summer evening
And on into the night.
The sweet smell of honeysuckle
Fills the evening air,
While fox cubs play on the edge of a coppice
The beauty of summer is everywhere.
A skylark sings high above
Fields of barley corn and wheat,
While on the lake swans with thier cygnets
Make the summer complete.
poem by Gordon Butchers
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Falling, Falling, Falling!
Babylon is falling, falling, falling!
This world is ending, ending, ending!
The bombs are falling, falling, falling!
My people are dying, dying, dying!
But, hold on! Wait a minute! !
Why is the world not learning, learning, learning? !
For hatred are now being taught in the schools and the churches!
And my people are now dying, dying, dying! !
For, we as human beings have broken the covenant.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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Caterpillar
Im a caterpillar
Im a caterpillar
Crawling for your love
Crawling for your love
Crawling for your love,
For your love.
Im a butterfly
Im a butterfly
Flying for your love
Flying for your love
Flying for your love,
For your love.
Well, Ill be anything that you want me to be.
Baby, Id even would be a-climbing up your tree.
Im a pterodactyl
Im a pterodactyl
Dying for your love
Dying for your love
Dying for your love
For your love.
Im an abominable snowman
Im an abominable snowman
Calling for your love
Calling for your love
Calling for your love
For your love.
Well now baby, Ill be anything that you want me to be,
Baby, a big monkey, a little monkey, a chimpanzee.
Oh now,
Im a caterpillar
Im a caterpillar
Falling for your love
Falling for your love
Falling for your love
For your love.
Oh baby,
Falling for your love
Falling for your love
Falling for your love
For your love.
Falling for your love
Falling for your love
Falling for your love
For your love.
song performed by by Janis Joplin
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Meadows In Spring
'Tis a dull sight
To see the year dying,
When winter winds
Set the yellow wood sighing:
Sighing, oh! sighing.
When such a time cometh,
I do retire
Into and old room
Beside a bright fire:
Oh, pile a bright fire!
And there I sit
Reading old things,
Of knights and lorn damsels,
While the wind sings—
Oh, drearily sings!
I never look out
Nor attend to the blast;
For all to be seen
Is the leaves falling fast:
Falling, falling!
But close at the hearth,
Like a cricket, sit I,
Reading of summer
And chivalry—
Gallant chivalry!
Then with an old friend
I talk of our youth!
How 'twas gladsome, but often
Foolish, forsooth:
But gladsome, gladsome!
Or to get merry
We sing some old rhyme,
That made the wood ring again
In summertime—
Sweet summertime!
Then go we to smoking,
Silent and snug:
Nought passes between us,
Save a brown jug—
Sometimes!
And sometimes a tear
Will rise in each eye,
Seeing the two old friends
So merrily—
So merrily!
And ere to bed
Go we, go we,
Down on the ashes
We kneel on the knee,
Praying together!
Thus, then, live I,
Till, 'mid all the gloom,
By heaven! the bold sun
Is with me in the room
Shining, shining!
Then the clouds part,
Swallow soaring between;
The spring is alive,
And the meadows are green!
I jump up, like mad,
Break the old pipe in twain,
And away to the meadows,
The meadows again!
poem by Edward Fitzgerald
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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By the Pool of the Third Rosses
I heard the sighing of the reed
In the grey pool in the green land,
The sea-wind in the long reeds sighing
Between the green hill and the sand.
I heard the sighing of the reeds
Day after day, night after night;
I heard the whirring wild ducks flying,
I saw the sea-gull's wheeling flight.
I heard the sighing of the reeds
Night after night, day after day,
And I forgot old age, and dying,
And youth that loves, and love's decay.
I heard the sighing of the reeds
At noontide and at evening,
And some old dream I had forgotten
I seemed to be remembering.
I hear the sighing of the reeds:
Is it in vain, is it in vain
That some old peace I had forgotten
Is crying to come back again?
poem by Arthur Symons
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Swallows in the summertime
Swallows in the summertime
The swallows have returned again,
Reminding me of those halcyon days of my youth,
Many years have passed since those blissful days,
I would spend many happy evenings watch them dart around.
The swallows always return each summer,
Spreading their joyful wings over England's green and pleasant land,
Every summer I wonder how many more times will I see the return,
Although it's summer again, I ‘am approaching the winter of my life.
When the swallows return again next year again,
I wonder if I will still be here to see them again,
Flying on the wing under the clear blue skies of summer,
If I ‘am, I will sit by the babbling brook and watch their dance once more.
If I see the swallows return once more,
I will remember those summer days of long ago,
When I was a lad and the countryside seemed to go on forever,
And in my mind I will be young again.
By Christopher Tye
poem by Christopher Tye
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Poppies on the Wheat
Along Ancona's hills the shimmering heat,
A tropic tide of air with ebb and flow
Bathes all the fields of wheat until they glow
Like flashing seas of green, which toss and beat
Around the vines. The poppies lithe and fleet
Seem running, fiery torchmen, to and fro
To mark the shore.
The farmer does not know
That they are there. He walks with heavy feet,
Counting the bread and wine by autumn's gain,
But I,--I smile to think that days remain
Perhaps to me in which, through bread be sweet
No more, and red wine warm my blood in vain,
I shall be glad remembering how the fleet,
Lithe poppies ran like torchmen with the wheat.
poem by Helen Hunt Jackson
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The Wind’s Tidings In August 1870
'OH voice of summer winds among the trees,
What soft news art thou bringing to us here?
Dost thou come whispering of hushed scenes like these,
Languid in sunlight, while the drowsy deer
Couch placidly at rest, and from the brake
The song of fearless wild birds rings out clear,
And groves and meadows and this baby lake
Are dreaming to thy dreaming lullaby?
Art telling of hushed scenes like these? Awake,
Answer, sweet dying wind, and do not die.'
And the voice of the faint winds, dying away,
Answered me, 'Nay.'
'Oh voice of summer winds, then art thou come
From fluttering in the tangles of the vines
Beside the blue blue seas, in the far home
Of the dim olives and the dusky pines,
And from the cypress bosks, and where the air
Grows lush and heavy 'twixt the dark starred lines
Of orange hedge a-bloom, and the wide glare
Floods soft round hills with southern perfect day?
Answer again, low voice, hast thou been there?
Art telling of the dreamland far away?'
And the voice of the winds sighed over my head,
'Nay, nay,' it said.
'Oh sweet low voice of winds, whose wavering flights
Smoothly, like flickering swallows, come and go,
What, is thy tale of where the ceaseless heights
Rest white and cloudlike in their virgin snow?
Hast thou been wandering round the scented firs,
And where the dauntless shrub-flowers bud and blow
Against the pale chill sea that never stirs,
And where the midway foam hangs o'er the cleft?
Speak, slumbrous voice, to slumbrous listeners,
Art telling us of these that thou hast left?'
And the voice of the dying winds breathed low,
'Nay, nay; not so.'
'Oh voice of dying winds, make sweet reply,
Whence hast thou come?
What does thy whisper say?
Answer, oh dying voice, and do not die.'
It whispered in a hush, 'The dead men lay
Fallen together like the sickled grain;
Onward still dashed the whirlwind and the fray;
The thunders and the tramplings shook the plain;
There was the crash and clash of host to host,
Throes, and the blood-pools widening, death and pain.'
And waning in a murmur it was lost.
poem by Augusta Davies Webster
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Fairies Come A-calling
winter fairies come
a-calling
faces pressed window panes
twinkling
frost makes lacy prints
glittering
light snow pristine pure
falling
world young life fresh
breathing
winter fairies come
a-calling
spring fairies come
a-calling
birds return twig nests
building
flowers open petals pink
blooming
fresh life everywhere
springing
pink green blue pale
coloring
easter eggs painted coats
hiding
spring fairies come
a-calling
summer fairies come
a-calling
evenings teem fireflies
sparkling
watermelon opens red
eating
grass crisps green gold
waving
wind soft thunder nights
lightning
ocean swim hazy twilights
fishing
summer fairies come
a-calling
autumn fairies come
a-calling
colors ripe red gold
falling
harvest pumpkins orange
picking
apples delicious fresh
tasting
leaves underfoot piles
crackling
autumn fairies come
a-calling
poem by Sophia White
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The Merry month of May
O THE month of May, the merry month of May,
So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green!
O, and then did I unto my true love say,
Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer's Queen.
Now the nightingale, the pretty nightingale,
The sweetest singer in all the forest quire,
Entreats thee, sweet Peggy, to hear thy true love's tale:
Lo, yonder she sitteth, her breast against a brier.
But O, I spy the cuckoo, the cuckoo, the cuckoo;
See where she sitteth; come away, my joy:
Come away, I prithee, I do not like the cuckoo
Should sing where my Peggy and I kiss and toy.
O, the month of May, the merry month of May,
So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green;
And then did I unto my true love say,
Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer's Queen
poem by Thomas Dekker
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Autumnal
THE Autumn leaves are dying quietly,
Scarlet and orange, underfoot they lie;
They had their youth and prime
And now's the dying time;
Alas, alas, the young, the beloved, must die!
They are dying like the leaves of Autumn fast,
Scattered and broken, blown on every blast:
The darling young, the brave,
Love had no power to save.
Poor Love-lies-bleeding, Love's in ruins, downcast.
Alas, alas, the Autumn leaves are flying!
They had their Summer and 'tis time for dying.
But these had barely Spring.
Love trails a broken wing,
Walks through deserted woods, moaning and sighing.
poem by Katharine Tynan
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The Cuckoo
That's the cuckoo, you say. I cannot hear it.
When last I heard it I cannot recall; but I know
Too well the year when first I failed to hear it -
It was drowned by my man groaning out to his sheep 'Ho! Ho!'
Ten times with an angry voice he shouted
'Ho! Ho!' but not in anger, for that was his way.
He died that Summer, and that is how I remember
The cuckoo calling, the children listening, and me saying 'Nay'.
And now, as you said, 'There it is', I was hearing
Not the cuckoo at all, but my man's 'Ho! Ho!' instead.
And I think that even if I could lose my deafness
The cuckoo's note would be drowned by the voice of my dead.
poem by Edward Thomas
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Blow, Bugle, Blow
THE splendour falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.
poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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On a Line from Valéry (The Gulf War)
The whole green sky is dying.The last tree flares
With a great burst of supernatural rose
Under a canopy of poisonous airs.
Could we imagine our return to prayers
To end in time before time's final throes,
The green sky dying as the last tree flares?
But we were young in judgement, old in years
Who could make peace; but it was war we chose,
To spread its canopy of poisoning airs.
Not all our children's pleas and women's fears
Could steer us from this hell.And now God knows
His whole green sky is dying as it flares.
Our crops of wheat have turned to fields of tares.
This dreadful century staggers to its close
And the sky dies for us, its poisoned heirs.
All rain was dust.Its granules were our tears.
Throats burst as universal winter rose
To kill the whole green sky, the last tree bare
Beneath its canopy of poisoned air.
poem by Carolyn Kizer
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